


Companion

by acerbitas



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Gen, Memories of killing and death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rats, Rats are friends!, Solitary Confinement, Stockholm Syndrome, Torture (past)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 10:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acerbitas/pseuds/acerbitas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reek makes a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Companion

At first Reek tried to catch the rat.  Crawling on his hands and knees, he scurried as fast as he could but lost it to a crack in his cell.  He leaned his head on the stone and peered into the hole.  It was too dark to see anything.  The stone was cool against his brow.

Reek pushed himself up onto his knees, and sat defeated.  Lord Ramsay had condemned him to the dungeons for a fortnight so far, but he had been merciful.  Reek had been left with a torch outside, and spared the flaying knife.  Every day he was given something to eat.  Reek took this as evidence of his lord’s mercy; he’d been beaten yes, but his back was halfway healed already.

Before Reek was born, life down here had been too horrid to remember.  But Lord Ramsay was just, and, and kind, even.  Reek wasn’t left in darkness anymore, even though he was alone.  He was trying to fix that.  The next time he was brought food, he spared some bread.  It would be a token of friendship.

When he was done eating, Reek resumed his task.  Placing some bread crumbs beside the hole, he made a trail and sat at the end of it.  He kept the rest of the feast for later.  When he had lived in darkness, he had made peace with (and eaten) rats.  Reek was a rat ambassador.

Reek was a good envoy; Theon had been a miserable prince.  He’d done his lord’s work at Moat Cailin, and been rewarded.  The collar around his neck was tight, and chafed his skin.  Sometimes Reek thought about running away, but he remembered what had happened before.  Theon would never escape, not in body or mind.  Theon was Reek now; Reek rhymed with meek.  He knew.

For at least an hour he waited.  There were rustling sounds.  A tiny pink nose appeared, and then a paw.  His potential friend grabbed at the closest gift and scurried back into the hole.  Reek waited, and while he waited, he remembered.

Phantom pain itched where his missing toes used to be.  Ramsay had teased him, when he’d taken the first one away.  He’d tickled Reek with the knife until he squeaked and whimpered, but never drew blood.  When Ramsay came back the second time, he made Reek scream.  Reek wished he didn’t make mistakes; his lord did not tolerate mistakes.  That was how he’d ended up back in a cell.

Reek returned to the present when the rat’s face poked out from the hole again.  It eyed him beadily.  Sneaking forward, it snatched a crumb, then another.  Reek watched, and the pit of his stomach twisted with hope.  This time it came closer to him before scampering back to safety.  Reek sowed more bread and postponed sleep to watch the hole.

After several more feedings, the rat came right up next to him.  It sat up on its hind legs, and Reek could see its chest rise and fall.  He wanted to hold it, to pet it, but he knew he had to wait.  Instead he held out a big piece of bread as a token of friendship.  The rat took it, and then another.  Its little paws clutched the bread as it chewed.  Reek watched it until it was done, and he imagined their eyes met.  Satiated, it left.

Reek finally slept, remaining bread clutched in his hand.  He dreamed about Robb Stark, a boy Reek had never known, and Winterfell before it burned.  In the dream Robb and Theon played at swords.  They both were laughing, but inside Reek, it was freezing and horrible.  The smell of death was on Robb, and Reek couldn’t make it stop.

Ramsay crept up on him, like he usually did.  Blood ran down his lips.  The bastard opened his fists, and his fingers were made of knives.  Reek began to scream.  The prisoner awoke, panting.  For a moment _Theon_ got out, and terror iced his veins.

Reek, reek, it rhymes with weak.

Unable to stomach the thought of more sleep, Reek put out his bread.  He was running out.  His companion was eager this time, though, and gobbled up the bread trail.  Arriving at Reek, it peered up at him with bright red eyes.  Reek held out another gift, and it took it.

Trembling, Reek held out his remaining crumbs, and the rat crawled onto his hand to get them.  Reek could barely breathe.  He wanted his companion to stay more than anything in that moment.  He held out his other hand, and ran it lightly over the rat’s soft fur.  It felt so nice.

Startled, the rat ran back into its home.  Reek nearly cried.

Reek was, at present, without any gifts.  But the next time food was shoved into his cell, he made quick use of it.  There was even cheese!  For a moment the captive felt _alive_.  His friend loved cheese, and came to his hand to get it.  For two more days, Reek worked at proving he was a friend with food to offer.  When he woke up the next morning, the rat was out of its hole, staring at him.

Sometimes, when he’d been in darkness, he’d forgotten how to talk.  In the light of the torch he said hello.  Opening his hand, he found sweaty, grimy cheese.  He’d kept it from the day before.  Reek held it out, and his friend came.  This time it stayed.  Reek ran his mutilated hand over its fur.  It chittered at him.  Reek’s eyes were wet. 

When he first came to the Dreadfort, Reek tried to talk to the guards.  One had poked him with a hot iron while the others laughed.  It hadn’t mattered that Reek had begged.  The marks still burned, sometimes, as if he was on fire.  Reek knew better now; he knew who his friends were.  The rat let him pet it more.  Its fur was velvet, and its eyes rubies.

“I’ll call you Squeak,” he told it.  Squeak was easy to remember.  Reek still recited his rhymes at night.  The more he thought about it, though, the more it stirred his stomach.  But he couldn’t think of anything else, and it stuck.

The next day, when food came, Squeak came to him quickly.  For several days Reek coaxed Squeak to sleep with him, but Squeak was afraid and wouldn’t do it.  On the fourth try Reek peered his head into the hole.  He couldn’t see, but maybe Squeak could hear.

“I know you’re afraid,” he said, “I’m afraid too.”  Reek did not care that he was a craven.  He’d begged for death for what seemed like an age, and it had never come.  He’d begged to Ramsay, and to the gods, both out loud and in silence, and nothing had happened.

“I won’t hurt you.”  _Unless they stop feeding me._ He didn’t want to think about that.  It reminded him of his times in the dark, clutching a skinless finger.   Reek could almost taste tears on his lips, and feel emptiness in his gut.  When he started thinking about it, sometimes he couldn’t stop.

When he couldn’t stop, he thought about murder.   That was a forbidden thought.  Ramsay seemed godly, and in his most fearful moments, Reek wasn’t even sure he _could_ die.  Ramsay could do anything, _anything_ , and Reek was small, and meek, and pathetic.  It was hopeless.

Shaking his head, Reek resisted the urge to hit himself.  The last time he’d done that, Squeak had fled.  “You can come under my cloak,” he urged, “it's warm.”

He didn’t get any response, but he kept talking anyway.  He told Squeak it was cozy underneath the cloak, even though it smelled.

“I was born here too,” he said, “right here in these dungeons. Everyone says I’m the Theon Turncloak, but I’m not.  It’s not true.  You have to believe me.”  Reek accepted it, as much as he could, when other people scorned him.  But he’d tasted a small bite of companionship, and he wanted more.

“Why are you alone?” he pressed on, “in my other cell there were a whole lot of you.”  _I ate their flesh.  Oh please, I didn’t mean it.  I was just so hungry.  And Lord Ramsay hurt me enough for it already, I swear it._

Now that he thought about it, all the other rats had been together.  Weren’t rats supposed to stay together?  _It’s like me,_ he thought.  _Friendless, and alone._

“I might go away,” he told the rat, “but it’s because Lord Ramsay will want me.  I have to obey, it rhymes with flay.  You’ll still be my friend, though.”  _Friend rhymes with rend,_ Reek thought, but didn’t say anything.

When Reek ran out of things to talk about, he fell asleep next to the hole. 

He was running, faster than Reek could believe.  Above him loomed two faceless heads, impaled on spikes.  They stared down at him, pitiless.  _They don’t have any eyes to see me.  They don’t have any mouths to judge me._ Yet somehow they did judge him, and he was condemned.

It felt like he ran forever, but he didn’t, because he tripped.  His legs were tangled beneath him; they were stuck on fabric.  Panting, he looked behind him, and there was the headless body of a man.  The man smelled like dogs.  Reek’s heart crumpled in his chest.

Then Ramsay was there.  Ramsay was almost _always_ there.  There was a glimmer of steel in his hand.  All Reek could see was the flaying knife, and all he could feel was the icy grip of terror.

“No, no please,” he whimpered.  “I’m sorry.”  But he knew his lord couldn’t be bargained with, and he knew the gods weren’t there.

Ramsay’s thick lips spread wide.  Reek was on the cross; he didn’t know how he had gotten there.  The stench of blood and fear was unbearable.  And from far away, up on the ceiling, Reek watched the Bolton flay off his face.

Then the dreaded key was turning in his cell’s lock.  _No,_ he thought, _no, no!_ Sleep clung to him, even after his panic at the sound.  It would be his lord, and another finger would be gone, gone before tomorrow.  Reek let out a low moan, and all the parts Ramsay had hurt ached in remembrance, even the ones that were gone.

But it wasn’t Ramsay.  A guard stood silhouetted in the doorway, his shadow looming and gigantic.  Reek cringed; he wanted to crawl into the corner, but he knew it would do him no good.

“Who were you talking to?” the man demanded.  He was small and wiry, with a torch in his hand.  His other hand was over his nose.

Reek looked at the ground, chest heaving.  His mutilated hand was trembling.  “N-nobody.”

The guard did not believe him.

“I was talking to my friend,” he admitted.

“You don’t have any friends.”

Reek swallowed, but didn’t say anything.

The man took a step towards him.  Reek watched the torch’s flames, fixated.

“Please don’t hurt me.”  Whenever he begged, he felt like the ghost of Theon would swallow him whole.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Reek eyed him with darting eyes.  “Does Lord Bolton want me?”

“No.  Just wondered why you were babbling, that’s all.  Driving Tyber up a wall.”

Reek didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed.  More than anything else, he didn’t want to be hurt anymore.  The pain could be so crushing that sometimes he saw the gods plain as day, and felt their presence around him.  His second thought was they’d take his friend away, or worse, tell Ramsay.  Ramsay would skin Squeak alive, maybe, or, or make Reek eat it.

The guard sighed, and took another step towards him.  The torch’s flames licked at the air.  “Come on, turncloak.  Just spit it out.”

“I’m not the turncoat,” Reek spat, even as he felt Theon stir inside of him.  “He’s dead.”

“Yeah,” the man said, disbelieving.  “And your friend?”

“You can’t see my friend,” Reek told him.  “Only I can.”

“Right,” the guard said, “that’s what I thought.  Just shut it at night, will you?  Tyber is crazier than you are.”

The guard left before Reek could think of a response.  The door slammed blessedly shut.  Crawling into a corner, he shivered.  He never wanted to meet Tyber; he would be quiet at night.  Outside, he heard the guard mutter: “he’s a loon.”  There was pity in his voice.

When his food slid under his door that day, there wasn’t just bread and cheese.  There was bacon, and a boiled egg.  “ _I’m not going to hurt you.”_ Reek trembled; the guards were not his friends.  He knew that.  But he ate the bacon like it was his last meal, nibbling on the edges and letting the grease linger on his tongue.

Reek didn’t have to urge Squeak to come eat this time.  Afterwards, Reek petted it.  The rat pushed itself on the floor, teeth chattering.  For the first time it fell asleep outside of its hole, and Reek felt a rush of pride.

It was an alien feeling, as foreign as pulling a bow taught, or standing on the deck of a ship, or smiling.  Reek wasn’t supposed to smile, and he wasn’t supposed to be proud.  But as he watched his friend’s tiny body rise and fall, he felt proud anyway.

The next day when Squeak came close, Reek was impatient to hold it.  He held out his hand, and Squeak hopped on, even though there wasn’t any food.  Petting gently with his other hand, Reek put his finger’s around the rat and lifted it up to his chest.  He whispered as soft as he could that all was well.  Squeak didn’t struggle, and, finding the opening of his shirt, peaked inside.

Squeak snuggled underneath his cloak, and clung to Reek’s better hand.  A tear ran down his cheeks, and then another.  It wasn’t afraid of him, and it didn’t detest him.  With quivering fingers, Reek stroked its tiny head.  Guilt and worry ate at him though; if Squeak knew about Winterfell, if Squeak knew about the boys, if it could understand…

The prisoner shivered at the thought, and he clutched Squeak tighter against his chest.  “I killed…people.”  It was too much to bear to say children; people killed each other all the time.  His voice was throaty and small.  “I mean, Reek didn’t, but Theon did.”  Squeak’s breathing was slow, relaxed.  “I mean…”  Reek did not know what he meant.

Squeak stirred, and for a terrible instant, Reek thought it had understood.  But Squeak clambered onto Reek’s arm, and crawled up to his shoulder.  It sat, perched there, teeth chattering happily.

 _It was alone, too,_ Reek remembered.  _It’s unnatural, just like me._ Reek’s cheeks were wet and flushed.  Little paws clutched his shirt, and he felt a tail slide over his back.  Reek shut his eyes, scarcely believing.  But it was _true_.

 _I_ do _have a friend,_ Reek thought, amazed.The next day the cell didn’t seem so small anymore, and food tasted better in his mouth.  _Friend rhymes with rend,_ he recalled, but tried not to think about it.  That night Squeak came under his cloak; its fur was heavenly against his skin.  In the safety of his cell, Reek smiled a tiny, nervous smile.

**Author's Note:**

> And everything was temporarily less horrible! The end.


End file.
